


Showing some restraint

by ifreet



Category: Psych
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-12
Updated: 2009-06-12
Packaged: 2017-10-10 10:27:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/98721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifreet/pseuds/ifreet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A bad guy handcuffs our heroes to a pipe in a basement.  But Gus isn't too worried, because Shawn has a plan... <i>right?</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Showing some restraint

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zeenell](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeenell/gifts).



> With thanks to akarui_rynka and iceaffinity, who tried to keep me from ending it abruptly and nonsensically. Tried.

The villain with ridiculous motivations backed out of the room, gun trained steadily on them as though they represented some sort of threat. The door closed, and Gus heard his feet on the stairs, climbing back to the main level.

He looked expectantly at Shawn. Who was frowning at the floor.

Seriously?

Gus shook his hands, rattling the handcuffs' chain against the pipe they'd been looped around. Shawn sighed and leaned against the wall -- the gritty, none-too-clean cinderblock wall -- and continued to space.

"Shawn!" It came out a bit sharp, but Gus had had a bit of a stressful day, what with being held at gunpoint and all. Also, it worked. Shawn's head came up, and he focused an inquisitive look on Gus. "You going to get us out of these or what?"

Shawn looked completely and utterly confused, and Gus got that sinking feeling in his stomach -- the one he used to think was maybe acid reflux but had come to realize was entirely Shawn. The feeling was confirmed a moment later, when a guilty look stole over Shawn's face. Well, as guilty as Shawn ever looked.

"I can't," he said.

If he killed Shawn right now, it would be totally justified. He could probably even get Lassiter to testify on his behalf. But since his _hands_ were _cuffed_, he decided to try reason first.

"Look, I know you swore you were never doing the trick again, but the word of an eleven-year-old is--"

"I mean, I _can't_." He moved -- to gesture, probably, he talked almost as much with his hands as his mouth -- only to be caught up short by the cuffs and shoot them a glare. "Look, why do you think I swore off that trick anyway?"

"It was getting stale?"

"Stale? Gus. Come on. Escape artistry is always fresh. Be serious."

Gus gave him a look that he could only hope communicated how done he was with this conversation.

Shawn ignored the look and stuck out his leg. "What do you see?"

Gus glared. Shawn rolled his eyes at him and shook the leg, like he was going to break into the hokey pokey. "Fine." He looked. "Your leg. Jeans. Your lame-ass sneakers."

"They are not lame; they're comfortable. And contribute to my child-like charm." He let the leg drop, then added, "They are also not 'Roos."

"Are you saying you had a key?" Trust Shawn to find a use for that ridiculously tiny pocket. At any other time, Gus would be impressed.

"Tada," Shawn replied, hands moving in a constricted fanfare motion. "Outgrew the shoes, outgrew the trick."

"So you don't have a way out of these?" The adrenaline that had ebbed when the gun had left the room surged back into his system.

"Ah, no."

"Great. That's just great." Gus tugged at the cuffs, not expecting much. Although... maybe there was a little give? He tried again, harder.

Maybe the pipe itself was loose.

He yanked at them again.

"Gus."

Maybe they could get out of here.

"Gus!" Shawn grabbed at his hands. Bad enough he wasn't helping, now he was getting in the way? They scuffled, Shawn ultimately gaining a hold on his forearms, that, given the situation, Gus couldn't break. Though not for lack of shoulder checks.

"Seriously, stop. You're going to hurt yourself." Shawn sounded more honestly worried about that possibility than he'd seemed about their situation as a whole.

"Tell me you have a plan."

"I have a plan," he echoed, confidence personified.

Gus waited.

Shawn sighed and crumpled a bit. "Wait for Jules and Lassiter to rescue us."

"That's not a plan!" Gus tried to yank his hands free.

"It's sort of a plan." Shawn tightened his grip. "No, it is. Rex Guffen is already on Jules's radar, and she's got the rubber chicken. If Lassie weren't so set on it being the ex, they'd be here already."

"But guy-with-gun _is_ here already, so excuse me if I don't find that reassuring."

"If he were going to kill us, he would've already. Probably."

"Not. Helping."

Shawn subsided. They waited in silence.

For at least a minute.

"I can't just wait."

Shawn actually rolled his eyes. "Okay, so... I spy?"

"Are you kidding me?"

"Last letter?"

"No."

"Six degrees of Kevin Bacon."

Gus raised his eyebrow pointedly. "Shawn, please. You cheat."

"I do no-- whatever."

Another silence fell while Gus basked in the victory of the almost-admission. Arguing with Shawn shouldn't be soothing, but oddly enough, he did feel better, slightly more optimistic. Maybe there was something to Shawn's attempts to provide a distraction.

Shawn started fidgeting, never able to keep still for five seconds together. Gus shifted, too, trying to give one of his feet a rest, and Shawn tightened his grip and _glared_, apparently thinking Gus had gone back to tugging against the restraints -- which he wasn't. Shawn leaned in close, well into Gus's personal space even taking into consideration how little that space became when it came to Shawn, and Gus marshaled his best rebuttals for whatever Shawn was going to say. And then Shawn kissed him.

Soft, pineapple-sweet -- and surprising.

Not that he'd never thought about it. He'd _definitely_ thought about kissing Shawn. They'd been dancing around the attraction thing for awhile now, at least since Shawn had decided to come back to Santa Barbara. No, ever since Gus had discovered that Psych had moved from perpetually in the red to operating (usually) in the black and had spent weeks waiting for the shoe to drop. For Shawn to lose interest and wander off, leaving him with a lease on a vacant, illegally-renovated oceanfront office... until Shawn had finally caught him worrying at it. He was serious about Psych, he'd said. He needed Gus to know that he could be serious, he'd insisted. And maybe they hadn't talked about it since then, but it meant something.

And he wasn't surprised because the kiss was good. The press of his lips, tilt of his head, sweep of his tongue against his lips... When he had thought about it -- well, he'd thought Shawn would be a good kisser.

No, what really surprised him was the timing.

"You think we're going to die," he accused.

Shawn jerked back. "What? No!"

"Then why did you do that?"

"Maybe because I like you, jerk." Shawn let go of his arms then, but Gus turned his hands and caught at Shawn's before he slipped away.

"Obviously," he said, as he tried to suppress a smile. "But why now? I figure you're either thinking 'last chance before we die,' or you thought I'd hit you if my hands were free -- in which case, thanks for that."

"I was waiting for the right moment," he muttered.

In spite of everything, Gus laughed. "And you picked this one?"

"Oh, shut up." His ears were tinged red.

"Okay," Gus replied, then leaned across to recapture Shawn's lips. After all, it wasn't like they had anything else to do, and as distractions go, he had to admit it was a good one.


End file.
